Sunday, June 17th marks the official start of Clarion West 2001. Saturday, June 16th is when it really all began.

I spent most of last night (Friday night, that is) packing everything I expected to need for the next six weeks so that it would easily transfer into my car and then from there into the dorm room. (For those who aren't familiar with what the Clarion West intensive writing workshop entails, I recommend that you check out their web site.)

Since I had volunteered to make a few trips to the airport to pick up some of our incoming classmates, I wanted to get to the dorms early, get my car unloaded, and start settling in before it was time to make those trips. Paulette (who went through this routine last year when she was a student here) was kind enough to get up early with me and show me around the campus and immediate vicinity. A handy tour, since we'd retrace those steps later in the evening on a QFC run.

Anyway, I went to the airport on three occasions and brought back a couple of Clarionites each time. In order to be easy to find in the crowd, I wore a Charlie Brown t-shirt. It seemed to work; they all found me. I enjoyed meeting each of my workshop-mates, and I'm very excited to be working with them. They are not only top notch, they come from such a varied set of talents, contexts and points-of-view... I won't be able to help but learn from their examples.

Following my final airport run, those of us who were at the dorm (14 of the 17 total Clarionites plus one relative) got together as a group, agreed to all eat dinner together, *successfully* chose a place to try in very short order, and -- this is the amazing part -- all 15 of us were able to travel as a group to the restaurant, get seated, and actually find something to eat. Given 1) the constraints of the restaurant to host us such a large party and 2) the varying dietary preferences of the group, I consider this feat to be nothing short of miraculous.

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Note to future Clarion West attendees: We found the local Ethiopian restaurant, within about three blocks from the SU dorms, and much fun was had by all. Recommended.

Also, I heartily endorse the idea of arriving the day before the first official meeting takes place. Bonding with your fellow Clarionites is a Very Good Thing (tm).
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I loved the meal; loved the conversation. At the end, roughly half of us decided to make a run to the grocery store to pick up a few essentials, and then we returned to the dorm. The evening wound down with a late night bull session in the lounge.

We are living on the top floor (that's floor 12) of Seattle University's Campion Dormitory building, so the lounge commands a wonderful view of the surrounding area (as do our rooms). Renovation was recently completed in the main lobby of the building and in the individual rooms of our floor, so the digs are pretty cool.

My room is set up: the computer works and my connection to the Internet is operating; the printer prints; the stereo sounds excellent; my alarm clock displays the correct time. Oh, and a big shout out to Amy: thank you for the fridge! It's keeping my beverages nice and cool.

While I've got the room set up, I still have three stories I need to read and critique in time for Monday (these had been mailed out last week, but I didn't have a chance to read them, regardless), and I want to flesh out a couple more story ideas of my own before the rubber hits the pavement. Somehow, I have to find time to do this tomorrow and still stay on board for a group Costco run.

No problem. Right? :-)